For Investors
A measurable value lever in your portfolio company, built in 90 days
Convios works as an AI operating partner inside software-driven portfolio companies. One lever per company, built and running inside the business, with an outcome component in the fee. The capability stays in the business.
30 minutes. No obligation.
The gap between thesis and P&L
In most portfolios, the AI thesis from the investment case has not reached the P&L yet. There are pilots, tools and good intentions. What is missing is the one lever that moves revenue, margin or working capital in a measurable way.
Serial acquirers know the second version of this problem: every acquisition raises the question of how much integration the business can take. Forced integration often destroys exactly what was bought. No integration gives away the shared capability.
The mandate: AI operating partner
We take on one clearly defined lever per company. Four fields we know in depth. After 90 days the lever is measurable in operations, your team builds along and takes over.
Pricing
What matters is what the price is tied to. When the pricing metric grows with customer value, expansion is built into the model itself.
Retention and monetization work two to four times harder than acquisition and almost everywhere get the smallest budget (ProfitWell analysis of 512 SaaS companies).
NRR · ARPA · close rate as a pricing signal
Sales productivity
Productivity means more result per head and per euro deployed. The constraint rarely sits at closing, usually further up the chain.
More activity masks falling efficiency. The magic number shows it earlier than the forecast.
magic number · CAC payback · conversion chain
Delivery costs
Gross margin is the ceiling for everything else. It drops with every person permanently embedded in value delivery.
AI on top of messy processes automates the chaos. The order is process, then data, then automation.
gross margin · delivery cost per customer · manual steps
Retention
Retention decides whether a company is valued as an asset or as a service with a recurring invoice. The reason to buy is rarely the reason to stay.
Average churn hides the critical early phase. Steering happens in cohorts.
NRR · cohort churn · time to first value
From analysis to a running lever
Stage 1
Analysis
- A first diagnosis within a few hours per company, AI-assisted
- A 30-minute call to choose the lever
Stage 2
Implementation, 90 days
- One lever: pricing, sales productivity, delivery cost or retention
- Implemented together with your team
Stage 3
Ongoing partnership
- The capability stays in the business
- The lever is reusable in the next portfolio company
- A fee with an outcome component
For serial acquirers: integration as a system
Our approach to buy-and-build is a platform foundation. The acquired companies share data, AI and playbooks and keep running their own business. That preserves the market proximity you paid for while still building a shared capability. Once built, the foundation carries every further acquisition: integration turns from a one-off project into a repeatable step.
Not sure which lever comes first?
That is what the scaling audit is for. We examine the five layers of your portfolio company (position, demand, monetization, economics, compound) against its numbers and decide with you which lever, or which combination, creates value fastest. After that it is clear what gets built, in which order, and by whom.
- The lever with the biggest effect, identified within days
- A prioritized implementation list: what, when, and by whom
- A decision basis grounded in the company's numbers
The audit also runs before entry, complementing commercial due diligence, and after closing in the first 100 days.
Exit readiness
Before a sale we examine the same five layers from a buyer's perspective. The result is an equity story that stands up to scrutiny, with proven numbers per lever.
A first picture in 90 seconds
The AI signal check shows in 90 seconds which signals a portfolio company sends today. A fast screening, right in the browser, no sign-up. The in-depth review is the job of the scaling audit.
Briefings for investors
Freely accessible, no form.
Does this fit your situation? Ask an AI.
Open this page in your AI assistant. It checks the offering against your circumstances and asks you three specific questions back.
Let's talk about your portfolio.
30 minutes, one specific company, one specific question. Afterwards you will know whether there is a lever, and which one.
Book a call